April 2020 | Sight&Sound | 95Letters are welcome, and should be
addressed to the Editor at Sight & Sound,
BFI, 21 Stephen Street, London W 1 T 1 LN
Email: [email protected]CHARLIE THE CHICKEN
Graham Fuller mentions numerous literary
and visual influences on The Lighthouse, even
including a reference to Dad’s Army (‘Divine
inspirations’, S&S, February). But I was reminded,
while watching the film, of the cabin-fever
scenes in The Gold Rush (1925), in which Mack
Swain’s descent into madness culminates in
his chasing Charlie Chaplin around the room
in the belief that he is a giant chicken.
Ray Jenkin CardiffPARASITE RESISTANT
How on earth did Parasite get to be Best Picture
at the Oscars? I wasn’t convinced by any of it. A
quartet of con-artists takes the place of the trusted
servants of a rich family with the family junking
their previous old staff when given the flimsiest
of reasons based on trivial incidents. An imposter
housekeeper cooks a complicated meal in less
than eight minutes with no prior knowledge
of the ingredients. An unwelcome visitor is let
into the house late at night because she keeps
on ringing the doorbell. The rich family are so
successful in business, but apparently idiotic
enough to be taken for a ride. None of this rings
true. The plot has more holes than Swiss cheese.
William Barklam LondonSISTER FACT
Philip Kemp’s review of Les Demoiselles de Rochefort
(Home Cinema, Sight & Sound, February) states
that it is “the only film to team real-life sisters
Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac”. In
fact, they had appeared together three years earlier
in Edouard Molinaro’s La Chasse à l’homme (1964),
released in the UK as The Gentle Art of Seduction.
David Webster By emailWHAT A DRAG
I enjoyed Tamsin Cleary’s article ‘The Tramp
Is a Lady’ (S&S, December 2019). Your readers
might be interested to know that A Woman
generated quite a bit of controversy in its time.
Chaplin’s early films had already been criticised
by a small but vocal chorus of self-appointed
guardians of the public morals for their sex
and violence. “I have seen Mr Chaplin blithely
performing functions in the moving pictures,”
one writer complained, “that even I would decline
to report.” But with A Woman (1915 – released
in England as Charlie, the Perfect Lady), Chaplin
upped the ante, with such explicitly sexual
sequences as disrobing a dress dummy as though
undressing a lover, conjuring a bosom by stuffing
a pincushion up his bodice and, perhaps most
alarmingly, impersonating a seductive female in
a disturbingly convincing fashion. Some critics
were outraged, and the film was even denounced
from the pulpit. Though the puritanical
blowback did little to affect his enormous
popularity, the intensity of it both surprised and
dismayed Chaplin, as we know from recently
discovered eyewitness reports. The film was
actually banned in the Scandinavian countriesuntil the 1930s. Chaplin responded immediately,
effectively substituting romanticism for
eroticism in his next film, The Bank. However,
he never abandoned the risqué and vulgar
humour he knew most of his fans relished.
Tamsin mentions that performing in drag
was a music-hall staple, and of course it remains
a robust part of the pantomime tradition. In his
excellent book Chaplin’s Music Hall (2012), Barry
Anthony uncovered a fascinating titbit about
Chaplin’s early interest in cross-dressing. At 17,
while on tour with the Casey’s Circus company
of juvenile performers, Chaplin borrowed the
frock of a schoolteacher staying in the same
boardinghouse and took a stroll around the
neighbourhood with her. No one was the wiser,
she proudly reported in a 1921 article in the Daily
Mail, as England was going into a frenzy preparing
to welcome its favourite son in his triumphal
return home. Obviously, all was forgiven,
including Chaplin’s failure to fight in the GreatWar, which was much more controversial in
wartime England than his transgressive humour.
Dan Kamin Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Dan Kamin trained Robert Downey Jr for his
performance as Chaplin and is the author of ‘The
Comedy of Charlie Chaplin’ (2008). He also
annotated ‘Charlie Chaplin’s Red Letter Days’, a
series of 37 articles written by a member of Chaplin’s
stock company and published in 1916 and 1917
in the British magazine ‘Red Letter’. The articles
were recently rediscovered and edited by Dr David
James of Manchester Metropolitan University.Additions and corrections
March p.60 A Paris Education: Certificate 12A, 136m 36s; p.62 Color out
of Space: Certificate 15, 110m 33s; p. 65 End of the Century: Certificate 18,
83m 54s; p.66 First Love: Certificate 15, 108m 19s; p.76 The Public:
Certificate 15, 119m 17s; p.77 Quezon’s Game: Certificate 12A, 126m 51s;
p.78 Spycies: Certificate PG, 99m 2s; p.78 Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise
of Skywalker: USA 2019 ©Lucasfilm Ltd, Screenplay by Chris Terrio, J.J.
Abrams, Story by Derek Connolly, Colin Trevorrow, J.J. Abrams, Chris
Terrio; p.80 Villain: Certificate 18, 97m 3s; p.81 Vitalina Varela:
Certificate 12A, 124m 48sREADERS’ LETTERS
FEEDBACKThe most surprising and delightful thing in
the issue of Sight & Sound guest-edited by
Bong Joon Ho was the first sentence of his
short paragraph entitled ‘Memories of British
Cinema’ (S&S, March): “I love horror films from
the Hammer studio.” The issue made clear how
deeply Bong draws on the horror genre for his
films. I think the great Terence Fisher’s Dracula,
Prince of Darkness (1966, pictured) may have
made a particular contribution to Parasite.
In both – spoiler alert! – four characters
breach an upper-class house. In the Bong,
they are one family; in the Fisher, they are
two married English couples, one younger,
one older, though the two men are brothers.
Both houses turn out to contain a creepy
housekeeper who frequently intrudes on
their space. Halfway through Parasite a
new character emerges from the basement
and causes mayhem. Halfway through the
Fisher, the remains of Dracula, plus his cloakand coffin, are revealed to be in the castle
basement. The Count is restored to corporeal
form when his remains are drenched in the
blood of one of the intruders, eviscerated by
the creepy housekeeper. Mayhem ensues when
Dracula then bursts forth from the basement.
Before that, however, there is an
extraordinary passage where, in the words
of David Pirie’s classic study, A Heritage of
Horror: The English Gothic Cinema 1946-72
(1973): “Fisher allows his camera to prowl
around the deserted castle in a series of
movements which evoke with a poetic
grandeur the unseen presence of the absent
host.” These scenes are more than matched by
Bong and Hong Kyung Pyo’s camera in Parasite
prowling around the rich family’s house and
creating a similar sense of foreboding and
menace. I very much look forward to what
the supremely talented Bong will do next.
Anthony Roche DublinLETTER OF THE MONTH
FAMILY RESEMBLANCEIMAGE: BFI NATIONAL ARCHIVE